


bend me, shape me, build me, break me (why was i your fool?)

by Zeiskyte



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Father's Day fic!, Gen, Goro is straight up not having a good time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24842734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeiskyte/pseuds/Zeiskyte
Summary: Six months after Shido's heart is changed, Goro visits his father in prison.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	bend me, shape me, build me, break me (why was i your fool?)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so let's pretend Goro shot the button to raise the partition wall, survived Cognitivekechi, and escaped the engine room. The PT steal Shido's heart without Goro. Royal doesn't happen. This takes place in June 2017. [And yes, the title is from It's My Turn from RWBY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6TrXkUjTIQ).
> 
> ~~Also crying because I went to buy the Goro Nendoroid and it's out of stock :'(~~

Goro had made many mistakes in his life. It would take him hours to list them, days to describe them, and years to atone for them. These mistakes weighed heavily on him in his waking hours and plagued him in his slumber. For Goro, there was no escape, no reprieve in sight, and salvation could be found easiest six feet underground.

His work under Shido had been his greatest mistake. Eating up Shido's praise out of the man's hand like he was some kind of _mutt_ was another mistake. Most of his hits were not mistakes - at least, not to Goro. Many of his targets were just as corrupted as Shido, and the world was better off without those _scum_. One Isshiki Wakaba stood out starkly against the rest of his victims, and Goro acknowledged wholeheartedly that her death was a mistake.

Believing that his asinine revenge plan he construed at the ripe age of fifteen would work against a top dog that had half of Tokyo's politicians, yakuza, and general populus under his thumb was probably his second greatest mistake. Showing up on Shido's metaphorical doorstep and asking to be put to use with a halfhearted excuse of ' _oh sir, I am very interested in your political stance on Japanese affairs and also I have supernatural powers to enter people's heads_ ' was not Goro's finest work. He was fifteen, lacking in any or all social skills, and thought he knew the punchline to the joke of a life he had been given.

"Akechi," the stern voice in front of him spoke up for the first time since they had begun their walk, "Third cell to the right. You have fifteen minutes."

As if flipping on a light switch, he cranked up the charisma, tilted his head _just so_ , and offered his trademark Detective Prince smile. "Thank you, sir."

The irony was not lost on Goro as he stood in the narrow prison hallway as a free man with a warden as his guide. The man waited at the intersection of the hallway, far enough for Goro to _feel_ like he had privacy in his conversation, but Japanese prisons were strict in their surveillance. He knew every word he spoke would be listened to without a doubt in his mind. Whatever. He could work with that. He had perfected his silver tongue in his numerous media appearances.

Taking short steps, he knew he was stalling. His conviction was gone and he felt as though he was making his way to the guillotines. In the deathly silence of the steel encasing them, Goro's footsteps echoed loudly, announcing his appearance to each and every one of the inmates. The closer he got, the more he wished he actually _was_ walking to a guillotine. It would be much more preferable to his actual destination.

Standing in front of the third cell on the right, Goro mentally marked this as his third greatest mistake.

"Akechi?"

Visiting Shido in his below ground prison cell was not something Goro had planned on doing - at least, not in his original plan. Considering that his original plan had him killing Shido before promptly turning the gun on himself in a short-lived, anticlimactic blaze of glory, standing before the man's prison cell had never been in the picture.

Shido, who had been sitting in a position as close to crossed legs as he could manage in his age, dropped his book to his lap and stared up at Goro. "Why are you here?"

Goro wanted to ask himself the same question. If he was being honest with himself, he _had_ asked himself that question - multiple times, in fact. It truly baffled him that he went through all the trouble to arrive at the prison and personally visit Shido. Being granted permission to visit was another hassle that he did not want to recall at the moment.

He sighed, lips pulling into a frown. "Closure, I suppose."

Deep in his bones, Loki seemed to laugh at that. Goro had spent his entire life detesting his father, all while eating praise out of Shido's hands. Goro _chose_ the path of a loyal attack dog - a hired gun. With both of them still unfortunately being alive, he had spent the past half year fighting with his conflicted emotions. Closure, Goro had decided as he boarded the train that afternoon, he was doing this for closure.

Goro expected Shido to bark a laugh, to sneer at his son. Mock him for crawling back to his master. _Pulled the leash too long?_ He'd taunt, voice dripping with venom. _Try and escape, boy._

Shido folded the corner of his page before closing the book shut. Distantly, Goro recognized the title to be a psychology text. "Alright. What do you want to know?"

Goro's expression spelled out his shock before he schooled his face into something more neutral. Unaffected. Shido's words had caught him off guard but the man didn't need to know that. Goro was an actor - he had been a _celebrity_. He had acted every single day of his goddamn life.

"You can stop doing that, Akechi," the man huffed, exasperation underlying his tone. "You're not fooling anyone here."

Goro pulled Robin Hood close to his heart, tapping into his charisma. "Everyone can hear us. I'm simply keeping my distance."

The second it was out of his mouth, Goro bit his tongue. If he wanted to keep his distance, he would not have come here in the first place. He had stayed away for six months already, he could have just kept his distance for the rest of his miserable life. Robin had insisted that Goro sort through his jumbled mess of emotions, and of _course_ that entailed visiting his estranged piece of shit father in his lifelong incarceration. Maybe Loki's suggestion of catching the first flight out of Tokyo had been a better option.

Shido laughed through his nose, a short exhale of supposed amusement at Goro's internal struggle. "Oh kid," he allowed himself a small quirk of his lips, something that could hardly pass as a smile, "I'll save you the embarrassment of calling out your bluff." He lowered one of his eyebrows, painting the picture of... an expression Goro was hard-pressed to decipher. "You only have a limited amount of time, so just spit it out."

Goro pinched his lips into a straight line, gaze focused on Shido. The man's head was as bald as always, and his stupid goatee was shaved off. His cheeks were slightly sunken in, his collarbones jutted out against his striped shirt, and his skin was paler than Goro remembered. His father had been in jail for roughly six months now, so it made sense that he looked more... _hollow_.

Somewhere, deep beneath Goro's hatred and anger and spite, was pity. Another mistake. He squashed the feeling immediately. Shido deserved _death_ for what he did to Goro and his mother.

"Why did you leave her?" He asked finally, and his voice was smaller than he wanted it to be. Weaker, more vulnerable. He was six again, watching his mother sob on her futon. _Shido Masayoshi did this to me_ , she hissed between sips of sake, _promise me you won't end up like him, Goro_.

"I never loved her," Shido said bluntly, no inflection to his tone. He may as well have been talking about the weather. "She thought I'd fall in love with her after a one night stand."

Goro knew that. It was evident that Shido held no love for Goro's mother. If the man had, Goro would be _Shido_ Goro, have no murders to his name, and probably not be half as fucked up. Once upon a time, Goro had entertained the notion. Having an actual father that hadn't hightailed it out of there at the time of his conception would have been great. Maybe twenty years and three months was a little too late for that.

And besides. Having Shido's blood running through his veins was enough of a curse for Goro. He would have to live with treacherous DNA for the rest of his life.

Shido broke Goro out of his thoughts. "Wait. How did you get permission to visit me?" The man spoke with genuine curiosity, his voice lilting up at the end in inquiry.

Goro had the overwhelming desire to shoot himself in the fucking foot. Oh wait - he already metaphorically did that as soon as he entered the prison doors. This was a doomed venture from the start.

Shido wasn't _stupid_. As loath as Goro was to admit it, he didn't inherit his intellect from his mother. Shido had been incarcerated for six months and undoubtedly had a grasp on the Japanese prison system during his days in the political world. Goro was mentally checkmarking his fourth greatest mistake -

"You told them I'm your father?"

Goro's fists tightened at his sides. The wardens at the front entrance had declared that only close family could visit inmates. While Goro would never in a thousand years consider Shido _close family_ , he had already built up the resolve to tie up loose ends, get his closure, and never see the man again. When the wardens seemed skeptical, Goro had allowed Loki's frustration to seep through with his seething, " _Would you like to take blood or conduct a DNA sample?_ " It had taken all of his self-control to keep his profanities in his throat. He didn't need to get kicked out before even speaking to his father.

"That was the only way they would allow me in," he hissed, dropping his voice down. Distantly, he wondered why he was even trying to hide their conversation. The guard that had escorted him was a few feet away and the other prisoners were deathly silent. In the bleak hallway where the only sound was Goro and Shido's conversation, they were, without a doubt, prime time entertainment. He raised his eyebrows, plastered a fake smile on his face, and gestured halfheartedly with his hands. "Cat's out of the bag. Surprise."

To his surprise, Shido let out a short laugh. "It wasn't exactly a secret. Anyone who looked close enough could tell."

Goro hated a lot of things about himself. The way he would fall to someone's feet at the smallest scraps of love and affection was a major one. His own hubris was another. His childish sense of justice on top of that. There were countless things Goro hated about himself - the list rivaled his growing collection of mistakes. And trust him, that list was - for lack of a better term - _really fucking long_.

Every time Goro would look in the mirror, he would remember the other most hated aspect of himself. Goro had his mother's hair color and her nose. Aside from that, it was like seeing Shido in the mirror.

Sitting before him was the perfect _this is what you'll look like in twenty years_. Maybe the real reason Goro wanted to kill himself while he was still young was so he'd never be the spitting image of his father. He kept his brown hair long because it was the complete opposite of Shido's baldness. Anything to accentuate their differences. Goro had promised his mom that he would never be like Shido.

Garnet eyes identical to his narrowed. "Did you believe me idiotic enough to recruit a teenager into The Conspiracy without even looking into his background?" Shido asked, and Goro saw his own face staring back at him. " _Akechi Goro didn't exist._ "

Fifth greatest mistake: Finding the name Akechi Kogoro in a novel, shortening it by a single syllable, and pursuing the same profession.

Fifteen-year-old him had thought, ' _I'm Goro and he's Kogoro. I wouldn't be opposed to being Akechi from now on. He's a smart detective._ '

Goro briefly wondered if he could use either of his Personas to kill himself. No - it was more worthwhile to take Shido down with him. That had always been the plan, hadn't it? Using Loki's power on himself and strangling Shido here and now before throwing himself into oncoming traffic sounded very appealing at the moment. Killing two birds with one stone, Goro was doing society a _favor_.

In the present, nineteen-year-old him pulled his face into his best _Detective Prince_ impression. "The orphaned boy before him didn't exist either. Now whose fault is that?"

Shido _had_ to know what the Japanese foster system was like, at least on a surface level. While only an orphan would understand just how _bad_ it was, outsiders could have an idea just by looking into the system. Considering Shido's personal hitman was an orphan and he " _looked into his background_ ," the man _had_ to know. Goro's childhood hadn't been full of _sunshine_ _and rainbows_.

"I'm sorry."

Goro blinked. No. There's no way Shido meant that. He was bullshitting him again. Giving him attention, putting the leash back on. Shido didn't know what the word sorry even _meant_.

Shido put his hands on the ground, pushed himself up, and got to his feet. Even now, he stood a few inches over Goro. Without those stupid sunglasses sitting on the bridge of his nose, Goro fought back the oncoming waves of nausea at seeing the similarities between their features.

What _really_ made Goro feel like vomiting was the genuine _sadness_ in Shido's eyes.

"I know you're never going to come back," Shido lowered his eyebrows (and if the man started crying, Goro would be convinced that Loki had injected Chaos into his veins and he was going insane because _Shido isn't allowed to look like an actual human being_ ) and wrapped his fingers around the prison bars separating them, "so I wanted to apologize. While you're still here."

Ah. Somehow, Goro had forgotten what Heart Changes did to people. This wasn't Shido. This was a sniveling mess that wore his face. The Shido that ruined his life died back on that damned cruise ship back in December. This entire trip was pointless.

"Why should I even accept your apology?" Goro hissed, narrowing his eyes and bringing his face closer to the bars. "This isn't _you_." After a moment, he spat out, "you're all that's left after the Phantom Thieves stole your heart."

"I ruined your life and took advantage of you," Shido said, and Goro could see the guilt written across the man's face. "I should have been your _father_ , not your boss giving you _targets_!"

"And what of it now?" Goro bared his teeth, his hands gripping the steel bars in front of him. "Apologies and regrets don't change anything."

Shido's bony fingers reached forward, rested against leather gloves, "Goro, I'm s-"

Goro pulled away, as if he had been burnt. " _Don't fucking call me that!_ "

Shido stared back at him, eyebrows raised, eyes wide, frown and parted lips and -

"Rot in here for all I care," Goro snarled, holding the hand that Shido had touched, "I'll see you in _hell_."

Goro turned around and never looked back. He followed the guard in silence, hardly offered a nod in farewell once they were at the main doors, and left the prison as calmly as possible. He boarded the train, sat in silence, exited at his stop. Walked to his apartment building, climbed the stairs two steps at a time, fumbled with his keys because his hands hadn't stopped shaking since Shido had touched him - nearly body slammed the door, stumbled into his room, shoved the door closed behind him, collapsed to the ground in a heap, dissolved into body-wracking _sobs_ -

Closure? Tie up loose ends? What the fuck was he _thinking?_

He blocked out Robin and Loki's voices. He dug his fingers into his scalp, pressing his fingernails against his skin with enough pressure to draw blood. He was so _stupid_.

He curled up on his carpeted floor, hyperventilating. What had he even expected to achieve by going there? Now the whole _world_ would know that Shido was his father.

Worse - he couldn't even be _mad_ at the man he saw. The prisoner with no hair, dark red eyes, a strong nose, sunken cheeks... that wasn't Shido. That was a man weighed down by someone else's sins, a man far too willing to serve time and atone for atrocities he didn't even commit. It was like yelling at a criminal's twin.

Goro knew what Heart Changes did to people. They were husks of their former selves. The person that had committed the crime was gone. It was like a sniveling, repentant clone replaced them, _begging_ to atone.

Goro was chasing after a ghost. Shido Masayoshi was alive, sitting in a prison cell, and deeply sorry for what he had done as a politician, a Japanese citizen, and most intimately - a _father_. The man Goro knew as Shido, the one who impregnated his mother and never looked back, the one who manipulated Goro and groomed him into his own personal killer - he had died as soon as the Phantom Thieves stole his Treasure.

He slammed his head against the ground, wincing at the impact. Yelling at the man today was meaningless. He might as well have been gunning down an old yakuza boss with Alzheimer's. The Phantom Thieves had stolen away Goro's one purpose in life - ruining Shido - and here he was, left with the remnants of a man that once was.

Greatest mistake number six: visiting Shido Masayoshi on Father's Day.

**Author's Note:**

> So Japanese prisons are extremely strict and prisoners lose their privacy, individuality, etc. It's always deathly quiet and on the chance that inmates speak, they talk very quietly. Prisoners read to pass the time. The most important part for this fic is that these prisons only allow close family to visit inmates.
> 
> Hope everyone has a better Father's Day than Goro!
> 
> Come talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Zeiskyte)!


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